Bernarda Fink’s recording of Gustav Mahler’s Lieder is an important new release that includes outstanding performances of the composer’s well-known songs, along with compelling readings of some less-familiar ones.
Category: Redbox
Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Los Angeles
Siberian born baritone, Dmitri Hvorostovsky returned to Dorothy Chandler Hall on May 22nd with a unique all Russian song recital which included songs composed to Pushkin’s poetry and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
LA Opera: The Monk vs. The Courtesan
As AthanaÎl, Placido Domingo created a realistic monk who was ostensibly tempted to disregard his vows. The audience knew that had the courtesan ThaÔs lived longer, he would have thrown his immortal soul into the wind.
Verdi’s Macbeth of the Living Dead
If it is supposed to bring bad luck to even whisper the name of the “Scottish Play” out loud, someone must have screamed Macbeth deafeningly before the performance at Saarbr¸cken’s State Opera House.
Les Mamelles de TirÈsias in San Francisco
Poulenc’s racy little 1947 confection took stage within Kurt Weill’s peculiar little 1927 singspiel Mahagonny all framed within the current California drought and doomsday predictions of impending global aridity.
A Coffin in Egypt: A Tour-de-Force for von Stade
Librettist Leonard Foglia based his elegant and literate text on the late Horton Foote’s play, A Coffin in Egypt, and the opera has the original play’s dramatic punch.
Powder Her Face, ENO
As one descends the steel steps into the cavernous bunker of Ambika P3, one seems about to enter rather insalubrious realms — just right one might imagine, then, for an opera which delves into the depths of the seedier side of celebrity life.
ROH presents Cavalli’s L’Ormindo at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London
Never thought I’d say it but……
Jean-Paul Scarpitta in Montpellier
I met with the embattled artistic director of the OpÈra et Orchestre National de Montepellier not to talk about his battles. I simply wanted to know the man who had cast and staged a truly extraordinary Mozart/DaPonte trilogy.
Barbiere Comes to Sin City
Professional opera returns to the Las Vegas Valley June 6th and 8th with performances of one of the best-known comic operas of all time, Gioachino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.